Another Year In Pop: 27

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to Dizzee on his first number one, albeit in a quiet week.

[Poll #1219130]

(Glasto influence watch: The Verve are at 58, Kings Of Leon at 64, but Jay-Z has four songs in the top 100 <-- WINNAR!)

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

going by chart peaks 'Hard Knock Life', 'Girls Girls Girls' and '03 Bonnie & Clyde' were bigger than '99 Problems' here.

'Big Pimpin' far and away his biggest in the US!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

btw did you hear about Touch magazine folding (despite sales increase)? shame as i thought you should write for them. apparently the reason is because nobody wants to advertise in a 'black magazine'/urban music publication (v interesting comment in yesterday's Media Graun highlighting the new Primrose Hill set steering ad men towards indie rock and forget everything else. astounding and depressing)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

not really so astounding any more. Britons be racist, still.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

it just seemed very surprising from an advertising point of view. the magazine circulation apparently increasing, street culture surely a lucrative market...and yet there's this supposed lack of confidence in it from companies - something not there 10 years ago. don't geddit.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I am v. tempted to call 1Extra syndrome on all of this. I have always hated the idea of that channel and probably always will; right at the peak of urban (I also hate the word 'urban' to describe 'music invented by black people' since that is basically ALL POPULAR MUSIC, anyway, if the media weren't such n00bs about everything) music's integration into the UK chart, they announced that it had to be sidelined off into a specialist channel because people who like urban music are Different From Us, the Jo Whiley demographic.

If I was not experiencing work currently that would make far more sense.

Anyway, I think you should start 1x new post/thread re: Touch closing. That advertising thinger is relevant to our interests & not everyone may have seen it this far down the comments.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

popular black music needs a catch-all term purely because of all the fusion and cross-pollination going on and the cultural connections between so much of it. whether good or bad, 'urban' is short and sweet enough to fulfil that purpose. the connotations needn't go beyond that imo.

i kind of agree tho re 1Xtra but that channel seems to have flourished with the space it's been given, and surely it reflects socio-cultural divides as much as re-inforces them. the real danger is if it gets axed due to inevitable cutbacks and then there's no room to re-integrate it's remit back into Radio 1 (who don't seem too fussed about grooming the new Westwood, Nelson or whatever).